Abstract

In Plotinus’s universe, Intellect is the first “product” of the One. Yet why and how precisely is Intellect “produced”? What characteristics distinguish it, and its particular way of knowing, from its higher cause? Questions such as these will lead one deep into the metaphysics and epistemology of the Enneads, where the operative principles that underlie particular passages often need to be teased out carefully. Indispensable requirements for this task are attention to philological and historical detail, and a general sensitivity to the problems Plotinus is facing. Emilsson combines both admirably.In the introduction, Emilsson sets out his baseline approach: Plotinus’s Intellect can be understood in terms of an “ideal knower,” i.e., “something that knows and understands what there may be to know and understand in as full a sense as one could possibly postulate” . As will become clear from chapters 3 and 4, it is self-knowledge in particular that lies at the heart of Plotinus’s view of the conditions that an ideal knower must fulfill